Raw Photography with Older Cameras

One of the things I like about my older Canon PowerShot G2 is that is supports Raw as well as Jpeg. This used to be common with advanced amateur models such as the G1 and G2, but these days you often have to buy a digital SLR to get Raw support.

Of course Raw photography isn't any fun unless you have a good application to interpret the files. I remember (way back when) struggling with Canon's software to process my Raw files... probably why I decided that Raw was only for special occasions. But now I can have my Raw and convenience too. Adobe's new photo workflow application, Lightroom, supports many of those older cameras that could capture Raw, including my black PowerShot G2. (You can see the entire list of supported models on the Adobe Labs site.)

I guess this is the modern version of nostalgia -- I really enjoy grabbing the G2 (it has a very smart custom leather case like cameras of yesteryear) on my way out the door, knowing that I have a fast f-2 lens, full manual controls, vari-angle LCD screen, hot shoe, and yes, Raw format. It even uses the same batteries as my state of the art Canon 5D DSLR.

When I return home, I can process my 4-megapixel Raw files with the beta 3 version of Lightroom. And they look great. It's old meets new. And it's a lot of fun.

4 Comments

I'm happy with my Fuji e550 point-n-shoot that has 6 MP and RAW capture - i seriously think any raw-negligent camera is a waste of time, and i'm happy to be finally using it thanks to my 1gb memory card. i feel as if someone has given me my hobby back! now i'm interested in composing HDR images

I agree with you. The camera is not all. I find boring that most people just look at megapixels. I think the art is important: how you take your picture, the topic, .... And also very important is the software. But then, you must dominate the software. Why buy photoshop if you only use half og its features. I found once a good course about digital photography with photoshop and then, all my photos look really different from what I was doing before.

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I have a lot of RAW image files from a Canon PowerShot G2 camera that I purchased in March 2002. I started to move the image files from my PC over to my iMac Aperture library. After I imported a few folders into Aperture, I went and browsed the folders. Much to my surprise I found out that the image files are an Unsupported Image Format. After searching around a bit, I found the list of Apple supported image files. Sure enough the Canon G2 isn't on the list.

So my question for you is, how have you handled your Canon G2 RAW image files in Aperture? I have several years worth of images that I'm hoping I don't need to convert to JPG before I import them into Aperture.